


Brief Glory

by toujours_nigel



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:29:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You wonder what the king is wishing tonight?<br/>He's wishing he were in Scotland fishing tonight!<br/>What occupies his time while waiting for the bride?<br/>He's searching high and low for some place to hide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brief Glory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Many worlds ago, my beloved, in a world we remember in these sad times only in stories that the bards sing, in these days when Kings are grasping and Queens are barren and Knights cowardly and Witches burnt, in such a world-in-stories there was once a King.

Yes, my beloved, like our own King, yet not. Nothing like our King, he was, for he was young and shining gold, and he had come to his throne through war, my beloved, and not over the heads of his father’s friends trampled into mud, and meant to have peace. He was golden in his armour, too, a beacon shining for his men, and for his enemies a burning torch. And all his barons urged him to war, and further war, and all the lands held tight in one grasping hand, and he denied them all, said he’d had enough of war, said that throwing the sea-wolves from his shores had been war enough, and more. And thus was the King of Dragons, who held his great sword shining on his lap and meted justice for his people, and in whose time the land lay quiet, and who men in these sad times dub Arthur of Britain and call merely a story.

He was king over a goodly people, swift in taking offense and as swift in pardoning it, lords and ladies who could part the greatest of friends after a duel or a drink—a younger world, my beloved, when resentment did not easily take root in the garden of the heart—and warlord to knights who would strike terror into all hearts, men who fought on till blood carried breath from their bodies, who battled elves and dragons and smoky magic as readily as they smote bodies of flesh and blood, and he was lauded by all the people of his land, from the priest in his seclusion to the peasant in the fields green in spring and heavy gold in harvest. With more than a subject’s adoration they loved him, with almost a parent’s yearning pride, for they had seen him come to the throne at a bare sixteen years of age; and they had seen him pressed most hard by his enemies, and they had seen his banner held aloft, the dragon alight, as he charged an enemy that outbid him in numbers by the hundreds; and they had seen him, his fair face wreathed in gold and blood and gleaming smiles, the day the Merlin of Britain crowned him King. They loved him, simply, because he was theirs, and they were his, and he would do all he could to protect them, and beyond that they trusted to what ears their prayers reached, whispered every dusk and dawn.

Yet above his shining sword and beneath his golden crown the King bore that day a sad countenance, a troubled countenance that stirred trouble in the hearts of his court. And yet he sat in judgement, and yet he warded their anxious questions off till in their worry they visited Morgan, called Morgan of the Faeries for her knowledge of their magic, such as no human was held to have. And though dread was in their hearts, for no mortal valour would here help them, yet in their love for their King, and overwhelmed with their worry for him they visited his sister. And she, who could draw news from air and even the very thoughts of men, she looked to them from her place by the great windows and bid their hearts hold strong and their minds rest easy, for the King’s troubles would soon cease to plague him, and the smiles bloom anew upon his fair face. Sir Launcelot, long looked-for and longer absent, had reached the shores of the land and with that the King’s wait was ended. The lords thanked her, and withdrew in silent order, tumbling to the courtyard before even the boldest dared ask his fellows what the meaning had been, of the smile on the face of the Lady of Faeries, as she sat in her tower with her loom and her scrying-glass and her far-seeing eyes.

The Lady—they would call her a witch, my beloved, in these our days—had spoken true, as the Lady did always, save when she found lies served her better. In the shining twilight barges came up the river to Camelot, shining silver on the silver water, and King Leodegrance’s pennants fluttered gaily in the evening breeze. From one barge descended lords of the kingdom, come to see their chatelaine safe to her husband’s home; from another tumbled her ladies-in-waiting, their velvets crushed in the long voyage and their eyes aglitter in their tired faces. From the greatest barge, a lord in all his finery vaulted as lightly as a boy leaping fences, and stood looking up at the palace and around at all the fine folk with none of the surprise of his compatriots, and only an assessing glance. The King caught sight of him, for he was striking, my beloved, in his solitude and his quiet stare and his black curls tumbling about his fine face, and strode quickly from the knot of courtiers to catch him in a close embrace. They were friends of long-standing, Arthur Pendragon and Launcelot du Lac, and Launcelot, himself a prince across the seas, had pledged himself in service to Arthur, forsaking even his duty to his father, and Arthur looked to him as his own soul in a different body, and kept no secrets from him, and no hidden truths.

Now he broke from the embrace and beckoned forth the girl who had stepped quietly up to the deck, and was looking about now with none of the surprise of her lords and ladies, and none of Sir Launcelot’s cheery appraisal. Rather in her eyes alighting on the high towers, the massive walls, the bright pennants, there rested a pleased possessiveness. All she saw was hers, and all she saw struck her as good and bright and prosperous, and left her heart happy. She had heard tales of the Pendragon and his lands, first from the minstrels and then the matchmakers, and lastly from Launcelot when he had come to stand in her marriage in his lord’s stead. Yes, my beloved, as they did when the Princess was wed this year, in that very way. Sir Launcelot swung her to the ground, with as little ceremony as if she were a friend from childhood—just so they handed Morgan down from horses and boats and trees—and while her own courtiers stared at his impertinence and bristled in indignation, Guinevere laughed, catching Arthur’s hand in hers lest she topple as the hard ground met her feet after such days of water. Her eyes ran up his arm to his fair face and now she startled, and stricken tried to pull her hand away.

Arthur covered her hand in his, calluses catching on her skin, and spoke her sweet words till she brought her eyes from their maidenly aversion and stared him full in the face and spoke disparagingly of his efforts to woo his own wife. The King laughed, ruddy in the sunset, his Royal wife slender against him, gleaming up at him with bright eyes and a heart filling fast with love. The Knight of the Lake, cast in darkling shadow beneath the walls, stared unseeing up at the Lady’s tower, and she, Morgan of the Faeries, swung away from her high perch on the window and turned to her scrying-glass with a frown creasing her ivory forehead. In the end the night would sweep them all in her caressing arms, but the memory of that glimmering sun has lasted, my beloved, to this day. A fairer time, so long gone, and still our hearts yearn towards it.

How do I know of it, my beloved? Why, many men have written of it, and told of it, and sung their songs in court and in inns and even in the bleeding dust of battles. And then, too, I know for I was there, many world and lives ago, I was and will again be, I who was the Merlin of Britain.


End file.
